Times In-Depth: Erie Zoo's future includes $1 million renovation

Recent animal deaths at erie zoo

- Samantha, the zoo's female western lowland gorilla, was euthanized Dec. 22 after experiencing age-related illnesses. She would have turned 49 this month, making her one of the oldest gorillas in captivity in the United States.- Kumar, a 20-year-old white Bengal tiger, was euthanized in January 2012 because of age-related illnesses. Zoo officials decided not to replace Kumar because there are two other tigers on exhibit.- TJ, a giraffe, died in April 2011 at the age of 16. A necropsy revealed no obvious cause of death.- Norton, a 22-year-old polar bear, died from a hernia in September 2010.- Simba, a lion, died in July 2008 at the age of 14. A necropsy could not pinpoint a cause of death.- Mizar, a 9-year-old polar bear, was euthanized in August 2008 after becoming ill.- Another polar bear, Alcor, Mizar's brother, died en route from the University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center to the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo on Aug. 21, 2006, after surgery to repair a broken leg. He was 7.- Rudy, then believed to be the oldest living lowland gorilla in captivity, died in March 2005. He was 49.- Sara, a 16-year-old giraffe, was euthanized in December 2003, two days after suffering a debilitating neck injury.

1924Year the Erie Zoo was founded. The Erie Zoological Society was founded and took over in 1962.

Nala, a lion at the Erie Zoo, looks out from her enclosure in Erie on Feb. 19. GREG WOHLFORD/ERIE TIMES-NEWS

W hen Erie Zoo staff made the decision to euthanize Samantha the gorilla, Scott Mitchell's first thought wasn't about how to replace one of the zoo's marquee animals.

The zoo's executive director and his employees were busy mourning the iconic matriarch of the zoo, the animal who'd lived there longer than any other in its history before health problems related to aging -- she would have turned 49 this month -- prompted her euthanization in December.

Mitchell didn't think then about how Samantha's death would affect attendance, or how to fill her empty exhibit by the time the zoo reopens for the season on Friday.

"The zoo is bigger than any one specific animal, even Samantha," Mitchell said. "If it was about one specific animal, you're not much of a zoo."

Still, the zoo is a business that is driven by ticket sales and memberships -- and those sales and memberships are, at least to some extent, driven by the public's desire to see the larger-than-life animals that capture hearts, fire imaginations and fill camera lenses: the lions, tigers, bears, giraffes, gorillas and orangutans.

A handful of the zoo's most visible animals have died in recent years, including Samantha and, earlier, Kumar the Bengal tiger and TJ the giraffe. Others, including Leela, an orangutan who was born at the zoo in 2003, have been transferred to other zoos to participate in breeding programs.

There is no replacing these animals, said Mitchell, 50, who has worked at the Erie Zoo for about 29 years and has been executive director since May 2007. There won't be another Samantha, who watched generations pass by her exhibit.

Part of the answer moving forward, Mitchell said, is a $1 million renovation of one of the zoo's polar bear exhibits and its lion exhibit. The renovation, slated to start this summer, would add space for existing animals and, perhaps just as importantly, transform the exhibits into less species-specific spaces, giving the zoo more flexibility when animals breed, die or are transferred to other zoos.

But even when that project is complete, the Erie Zoo, like all other zoos, will continue to grapple with the unending issue of if, how and when to bring in new animals.

Reaching an answer isn't an easy process.

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The way zoos acquire animals has changed.

Zoos are no longer bringing in animals from their native habitats, which was the practice decades ago. Today, 90 percent of animals in captivity were born in zoos, said Steven Feldman, spokesman for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums in Silver Spring, Md.

Some animals are bought by one zoo from another, as was the case in 2011 when the Erie Zoo spent $7,500 to buy Nigel, a giraffe, from the Como Zoo in St. Paul, Minn., and another $5,000 to transport him here.

But other animals, particularly those that are endangered or threatened, arrive by way of breeding loan agreements between two zoos.

Those agreements are guided by the AZA's Species Survival Plan Program, introduced in 1981 to "cooperatively manage specific, and typically threatened or endangered, species population" within AZA-accredited zoos and aquariums and other facilities.

Survival plans recommend the proper breeding, treatment, handling and housing of more than 300 species, including the giant panda, California condor and lowland gorilla.

The Species Survival Plan Program helped increase cooperation and communication among zoos, and made the process of acquiring and breeding animals more organized, said Cindy Kreider, director of the Erie Zoo and program manager for the Amur leopard Species Survival Plan.

But filling an empty exhibit isn't a simple task.

With the help of the SSP, a zoo must find another zoo willing to loan the particular animal it hopes to exhibit. And the timing has to work: One zoo might be looking for a polar bear, for instance, but the only one available might be too young to transport at the time the receiving zoo has the necessary space and resources.

All the variables make planning ahead to replace an animal difficult, if not impossible, Kreider and Mitchell said. And there's also the matter of DNA.

When looking to breed an animal, a zoo must make sure that the genes of a potential mate coming from another zoo aren't already well-represented in the population. The Erie Zoo in 2009 added Edgar, an Amur leopard from the European country of Estonia, because his genes were not well represented and would contribute to the diversity of the species.

"At the end of the day, it's about the species," Mitchell said. "You have to look beyond your zoo gates to what's best for the species in the long term."

The Erie Zoo faces a particular challenge in trying to bring another gorilla or gorilla pair here: Gorillas are social animals; males typically live with a harem of three or four females. The zoo can hold two gorillas in what used to be Samantha's exhibit. A potential partner zoo might not be willing to break up an existing group to send a pair -- two females or a male and female -- to Erie.

"It drives me crazy sometimes," Kreider said of the acquisition process. "It's a puzzle you have to figure out and there are a lot of variables in it."

Sometimes the issue isn't with bringing new animals in. It's dealing with the ones already there.

The zoo housed an African elephant as recently as 1997. It decided to stop exhibiting elephants when the AZA recommended zoos house no fewer than four or five elephants because of their social nature. The zoo did not have the space or resources to do that, Kreider said.

The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo had to consider what to do with its aging hippopotamus when it was building its celebrated African Elephant Crossing exhibit, which opened in 2011. The hippo -- more than 50 years old, making it the oldest in North America -- was housed in the same building as the elephants. Including the hippo in the new exhibit would have increased the cost prohibitively, said Chris Kuhar, director of the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo.

"We had to make a conscious decision whether to build for this particular animal that was not likely going to be with us" in the future, Kuhar said.

The hippo could not be transferred to another zoo because of its age. In the end, the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo moved it to another exhibit space that is comfortable but not open to the public.

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Erie's $1 million renovation of the polar bear and lion exhibits is aimed at animal management as well as improving the experience of existing animals and the visiting public, Mitchell said.

The zoo has just begun to work with Kidder Wachter Architecture & Design to design the project. Preliminary plans include renovating holding spaces and refacing and sculpting the concrete walls. The renovation also calls for filling the moats that separate the outdoor open-air spaces from the outer exhibit rail, and installing glass partitions.

The changes are meant to modernize the exhibits and bring the visitors face-to-face with the animals, much as they are with most other exhibits, Mitchell said. The renovation would also likely more than double the size of the exhibits, each of which are about 35 feet by 45 feet, Kreider said.

Also under consideration: adding netting to the top of the exhibits.

Right now, the two exhibits can house a limited number of species. If the lions died or were transferred, for instance, keepers could not move jaguars or cheetahs into that lion exhibit because jaguars and cheetahs are climbers.

Adding netting would remove those restrictions and allow for the housing of a wider variety of animals -- which means more flexibility for the zoo in terms of animal management. When one animal dies, the zoo could quickly and easily move another into that exhibit, Mitchell said.

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The Erie Zoo is still committed to bringing marquee animals to Erie, Mitchell said.

"You have to have those," he said.

Still, he said, "We are as responsible as any zoo in realizing what we can and cannot do."

"We're never going to have elephants" again, Mitchell said. "We have space constraints, we have budget constraints."

The zoo's commitment to both its animals and the public is evident in the renovation project, he said. The zoo already has raised about $650,000 through donations, and is looking for more donors.

"We need to do these kinds of projects from time to time," Mitchell said. "Our community has an expectation about what we should be doing and we need to keep improving."

Recent animal deaths at erie zoo

- Samantha, the zoo's female western lowland gorilla, was euthanized Dec. 22 after experiencing age-related illnesses. She would have turned 49 this month, making her one of the oldest gorillas in captivity in the United States.- Kumar, a 20-year-old white Bengal tiger, was euthanized in January 2012 because of age-related illnesses. Zoo officials decided not to replace Kumar because there are two other tigers on exhibit.- TJ, a giraffe, died in April 2011 at the age of 16. A necropsy revealed no obvious cause of death.- Norton, a 22-year-old polar bear, died from a hernia in September 2010.- Simba, a lion, died in July 2008 at the age of 14. A necropsy could not pinpoint a cause of death.- Mizar, a 9-year-old polar bear, was euthanized in August 2008 after becoming ill.- Another polar bear, Alcor, Mizar's brother, died en route from the University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center to the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo on Aug. 21, 2006, after surgery to repair a broken leg. He was 7.- Rudy, then believed to be the oldest living lowland gorilla in captivity, died in March 2005. He was 49.- Sara, a 16-year-old giraffe, was euthanized in December 2003, two days after suffering a debilitating neck injury.

1924Year the Erie Zoo was founded. The Erie Zoological Society was founded and took over in 1962.